product stewardship
Ashland's commitment to product stewardship
We recognize that in today’s world making a commitment to environmental responsibility means more than reducing the environmental impacts of our finished products themselves. It also involves understanding and ensuring the effective management of health, safety and environmental risks during the discovery, development, manufacture, use and disposal of our products. We are a Responsible Care® Company committed to implementing the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) codes of practice for product safety, process safety, and security.
ACC product safety code
In line with the commitment to product safety and product stewardship, Ashland have implemented throughout the company a program based on the ACC's Responsible Care® initiative and International Council of Chemical Association's Global Product Strategy. For ACC member companies, safe management of chemicals is a core value, informing how products are made, sold, delivered, used and disposed. The ACC Responsible Care® Product Safety Code is the chemical industry’s pledge to deliver products that can be used safely, from inception to end-of-life. Ashland fully implemented all eleven management practices in the code throughtout the company.
Ashland uses tiered risk-based prioritization approach for product risk prioritization and characterization for effective management of high risk products and ingredients.
at Ashland, Product Stewardship includes
- Leadership's commitment to the culture of product safety as a core value. Development and implementing product safety and product stewardship program and standards. Identifying and establishing accountability for the roles that contribute to product safety and product stewardship.
- Developing and implementing risk-based prioritization process that considers available hazard and exposure information including internally identified intended uses and exposures associated with the stages of a product’s lifecycle.
- A global management system to deliver excellence in product stewardship and meet required local, regional and business specific standards. To maintain information on new and existing products to support risk characterization and risk management.
- Develop, implement, and communicate processes to appropriately manage health, safety and environmental risks of products, including use restrictions, reformulations, engineering and design controls, training, personal protection equipment's, handling instructions, labelling and safety data sheets.
- Generating new product safety information by assessment and animal free alternative testing as early as research and development stage by integrating product safety into product development. Continuing to gathering new information and assessing the risk at various stages of product life cycle.
- Transparent flow of information throughout the value chain (e.g., suppliers, manufactures, customers, waste vendors, etc.), so that all stakeholders understand and manage risk, and provide meaningful and relevant information to their respective stakeholders.
- Making product safety and product stewardship information publicly available. Establishing channels for communication to quickly address the product safety and product stewardship inquiries.
- Periodic assessment of effectiveness of product safety and product stewardship program, management systems, standards and making continous improvements.
product reviews
To further understand the impacts of our manufacturing, Ashland performs product life cycle assessments. Life cycle assessments are completed per industry standards and best practices and generate quantitative estimations of the environmental impact of a product’s manufacture. This environmental impact data is then used for customer reporting and to inform strategic decisions throughout the rest of the product’s life cycle, as well as a benchmark to compare product innovations.
Ashland’s life cycle assessments are typically completed with a cradle-to-gate scope and are product- and equipment-specific. Ashland performs life cycle assessments per business demand.
product support and service
Ashland strives to provide high level of product support and services to its customers. We maintain a global 24-hour emergency hotline and emergency contact information to immediately respond to product safety and product stewardship questions and emergencies.
All Ashland products comply with applicable hazard communication requirements, including labeling, packaging and Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) for all countries in which Ashland sells products. Ashland’s hazard communication system supports 41 languages for these documents. Ashland also provides regulatory and safety data via regulatory data sheets and toxicological summaries.
Ashland is also compliant with all country chemical inventory control laws, and REACH regulations in the European Union, United Kingdom, South Korea and Turkey. REACH requires companies to make health and environmental assessments for the chemicals they produce. The two main requirements of REACH are to determine the hazards of chemicals and to carry out comprehensive risk-assessments to protect human health and the environment. Ashland is part of several Substance Information Exchange Forums (SIEF's) for seamless exchange of chemical regulatory information. Ashland actively engages in advocacy for shaping effective chemical management regulations.
Ashland ensures compliance with the Globally Harmonized System for Classification and Labeling (GHS) by effective management of change processes that engage internal and external stakeholders. This ensures that changes in the product risk management information is effectively communicated down the value chain.
